I am an evil giraffe. But I'm trying, Nick. I'm trying REAL HARD to be the wizard.

State Sen. Malcolm Smith and city Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested this morning on charges they were plotting to rig this year’s mayoral election through fraud and bribes.

The pols allegedly formed an alliance built on cash payments and fraud to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — placed on the GOP mayoral ballot, sources said.

FBI agents arrested them both at their Queens homes shortly after 6 a.m.

You may remember Malcolm Smith from last December, when he half-broke from the Democratic party in order to join the Independent Democratic Caucus, which is the organization that is allowing the NY GOP to retain control of the state Senate. I don’t think that Smith being thrown out on his ear will be enough to flip the state Senate back, but I guess that we’re about to find out! Dan Halloran is the neo-pagan guy (I mention this for identification purposes only: no, seriously, some of my best friends really ARE neo-pagans) who ran for Congress last year, and lost. There’s a bunch of other people who got arrested, including some top NYC GOP party officials (Joseph Savino and Vincent Tabone) and the (Democratic*) mayor and assistant mayor of Spring Valley: which may explain why this story will be slow getting off the launching pad. Everybody’s really busy checking first to make sure that none of their people are actually in the blast zone.

As for me… it’s the New York legislature. All of the corruption of New Jersey’s; none of the charm. This is what happens when you have dirty politicians who – thanks to the magnificent cash cow that is NYC – don’t actually have to work for their ill-gotten gains…